With my hands on my hips, I pretended to glare at him. “Stop lollygaggin’ around,” I said in a terrible rendition of his Southern accent. “I didn’t hire you to gab, Mr. Kelly, an’ this old house ain’t gonna renovate itself!”
“Que pensiez-vous? What were you thinking?” Drake demanded as he paced back and forth, pushing a hand through his unruly dark hair.
“What?” was all I could think to say. Only seconds ago, I’d been in bed with Ryan. He was kissing me all over my face, while attempting to remove my jeans and whispering in my ear all the fantasies that awaited me. One thing I could say about Drake was, he had bad timing. Really bad timing.
“Peyton!” Drake persisted, even snapping his fingers to get me to focus on him.
I shook my head and took a deep breath, looking around as I sort of recognized my surroundings. The walls were cream, which threw me, but the large, black marble fireplace in the middle of one wall and the five floor-to-ceiling picture windows at the far side of the room told me I was standing in my own living room. The windows were trimmed in cornflower-blue silk drapes and the furniture in the room was decidedly less masculine than the furniture I’d seen in Drake’s bedroom, er, my bedroom. There were two whitewashed, French bergère oak chairs in front of the fireplace, both upholstered in a light-blue fabric. The sofa, loveseat, and ottoman all matched the whitewashed, French country theme inspired by the bergère chairs, complete with the same light-blue upholstery. If I’d had a camera, I would have taken a picture because I quite liked the style.
“Ma minette, comment vous me vexez! Ugh, how you vex me! Are you listening?” Drake continued, this time striding up to me until he was maybe four steps away. He was dressed in his police uniform, his black pants clinging to his shapely butt and long legs. I was surprised at how similar his uniform was to those of the present. His jacket looked a bit outdated, maybe, with numerous buttons going down the front and an overall amorphous shape. But, outdated or not, a man in uniform was a man in uniform, and it didn’t matter if said uniform was from the early 1900s. Yep, any way I looked at it, Drake Montague was so handsome, my breath caught in my throat.
I glanced up at him and nodded dumbly. “Sorry, I just thought I was…somewhere else.”
“Oui, yes, you were,” he answered, with a haughty expression and one arched eyebrow. He sounded somewhat displeased, maybe even irritated. He straightened his posture and rested his icy chocolate eyes on mine. His lips were tight. “Toutes mes excuses. I apologize for interrupting your dreams of the large barbarian.”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Hearing Ryan described as a “large barbarian” was funny. That was my first thought. My second one was how did Drake somehow tune himself into my head? How did he know I’d been dreaming about sex with Ryan? That thought both unnerved and embarrassed me, a lot. But despite my discomfiture, it was more important to remember Drake was an eavesdropper. “So, can you just force your way into my thoughts and dreams whenever you choose?” I asked, sounding less than thrilled at the notion.
“Non,” he said, shaking his head, his eyes still narrowed and his expression less than amused. “Only when my power is at its greatest and you…ouvrez vos pensées, open your thoughts to receive me.” Once he said those last six words, he smirked knowingly and allowed his eyes to travel my body from bust to legs and back up again.
“Hey!” I started.
The corner of his mouth lifted into something not quite a smile but hinted at his amusement all the same. “I do approve,” he said. I imagined he was referring to my figure. I just shook my head—one thing I was learning about Drake was that he appreciated women. If I’d known him better, I might have even gone so far as to say he was a womanizer…or had been.
A moment later, though, any residual sexual innuendo vanished. Instead, he started pacing back and forth again, his heavy footfalls pounding against the walnut floors. Apparently, he was back to being pissed off. And I had to admit I much preferred the lascivious Drake to the perturbed one.
“Okay, and why am I being reprimanded again?” I asked, opting to take a seat on the sofa because I had a feeling I’d be here for a while.
Drake faced me, throwing his hands in the air. Obviously, this spirit tended toward the dramatic. “You should not dabble in things you know nothing about!”
“Um, I’m not following you, Inspector Clouseau,” I answered with a slight smile. Then I realized The Pink Panther came way after Drake’s time, so my quip was most definitely lost on him. What a shame.
He looked slightly confused before jumping right back into his diatribe again. “The board!” he answered, his tone clearly conveying I should have known what he was talking about. Then I remembered our first conversation where he’d willingly admitted to “watching” me and I realized he’d probably watched Trina and my whole botched attempt to reach out to the other side, his side. He paced toward the bank of windows, turned on his heels, and strode back to me.
“Here we go,” I grumbled. “Yes, I already got an earful about playing with Ouija boards, and already promised everyone who will listen that I won’t have anything else to do with them.”
“Un savon? An earful?” he demanded, eyeing me carefully.
“The large barbarian,” I answered with a shrug while concealing a smile.
He frowned. “We shall discuss him another day,” he answered indifferently. “For now, I am mostly concerned with undoing whatever damage you’ve enabled with your trifling.”
“Damage?” I repeated, feeling slightly irritated with his pedantic air. How many lectures would I get on this subject? Then an idea popped into my head. “Well, I was trying to contact you, if you really want to know the truth, but you never responded, which makes me wonder now if you’re nothing more than an illusion created by my dream imagination…”
He shook his head immediately. “Non, je ne suis pas une illusion!” he spouted out angrily before composing himself and translating, “I am no illusion.”
“Then why didn’t you reply when we tried to reach you through the board?”
He frowned at me. “When you open a gate, such as the one you did, there is no way to determine which spirits come through.”
“What does that mean?”
He started pacing again and didn’t answer until he reached the fireplace. “There was a surge of energy when you opened the portal, which I was unable to get through.” He frowned at me. “Believe me, I tried.”
“So who got through?” I demanded, suddenly unnerved, remembering how the board rattled off the names of the Axeman’s victims.
“Je ne sais pas! I don’t know for certain.” Drake shrugged as he made his way toward me again. He was moving around so much, I was getting dizzy. “I tried to reach out to you, but the power was too great.”
“What power?” I asked, shaking my head. “Whose power?”
“I cannot answer your questions,” he said matter-of-factly. “But whatever it was, it is cause for concern, which is why you and I are having this conversation now.”